As concerns about climate change continue to escalate, the search for effective solutions has become more pressing than ever. While reducing carbon emissions is crucial, it may not be enough to mitigate the damage already done. The new conversation has been about carbon negative technologies and practices, a concept that goes beyond mere carbon neutrality.
Let's dive in with Biology 101.
When we breathe, we take in oxygen and we breathe out carbon-dioxide. Plants take in carbon dioxide during the day and release oxygen at night through the process of photosynthesis (converting carbon-dioxide and water to sugar and oxygen). Yes?
With large-scale deforestation, there are now fewer trees and with that, there is more carbon dioxide in our environment. In addition, each of us make a daily environmental impact by our lifestyle choices.
The Nature Conservatory laments that the average carbon footprint for a person in the United States is 16 tons, one of the highest rates in the world, compared to 4 tons globally.
So how can we attempt to slow down and limit future global warming to below 2°C?
To take a stand, 16-year old global warming activist, Greta Thunberg took a sail boat across the Atlantic to showcase urgency for climate crisis. There have been many climate change protests since then.
While we may not cut travel all together, the truth is that we can all chip in by making small practical changes to our actions - like biking to work, being vegetarian or vegan, taking less connecting flights and line drying your clothes.
The Nature Conservatory also has a Carbon Footprint Calculator that can help you figure out your own carbon footprint, so check it out!
There is no question that our individual emissions are damaging our earth's climate. But today's conversation is about something bigger. While making a small change in our lives help a tiny bit, the real problem lies with larger, more global corporations (Chevron, Exxon Mobile, BP, China (Coal), Saudi Arabia Aramco, National Iranian Oil, and Royal Dutch Shell, etc.) that produce or use petrol, jet fuel, natural gas, and thermal coal and then emit carbon and methane into the atmosphere throughout the supply chain, from extraction to end use.
The conversation in the last decade has been about the carbon that these companies emit and if there are ways for them to reduce those emissions.
According to journalist Douglas Starr who wrote an article in 2016 for Science (a publication of AAAA), companies are now conducting environmental impact statements, creating carbon-sensitive policies, and increasing their financing of renewable energy projects.
This is a good thing. Climate-savvy folks (like me, and now, hopefully you) are looking for some real system-wide initiatives from companies around environmentalism. This basically means that we want companies to improve their sustainability efforts and offset (via payments) or preferably - directly reduce the emissions they produce.
We call this behavior, carbon-neutral.
That sounds like a good thing. It does, because it is.
Carbon neutrality however needs research and development. Businesses are struggling to find solutions to this issue but research institutes are helping. For example, here in California, the University of California has its own Carbon Neutrality Initiative where they are working on providing scalable solutions by 2025.
Since this conversation has been going on for at least a decade, we are already seeing some companies doing their bit. So which companies are being responsible?
Levi Strauss has created a 'Care Tag for Our Planet' where they encourage consumers to wash their jeans less. They have also partnered with EvrNu to create their jeans from new fiber made from discarded cotton shirts. Nike has a line of sustainable products made of recycled materials. IBM has smart buildings. Siemens is going carbon-neutral by optimizing energy costs, employing low-emission vehicles and increasing its use of renewable energy such as natural gas and wind power that emit very little or no carbon-dioxide.
foam with paper cups.
Google is buying mostly renewable energy.
Coca Cola is only sourcing ingredients from sustainable agriculture supply chains.
Car companies are making electric vehicles or cars that lower fuel consumption and carbon emissions.
Disney has a zero-waste policy to ensure things do not end up in landfills. Hawaii and California have state-wide plastic bag bans and Curitiba in Brazil recycles 70% of its waste and offers residents incentives like for recycling and reusing household items. Many cities, such as Manhattan Beach, CA have banned single-use plastics.
Are they succeeding? Yes. But can they do better?
Yes. They can go carbon negative. OK. So what is carbon negative?
Carbon negative is a bigger goal where companies remove more carbon from the atmosphere than they generate or emit each year. (carbon-positive is the same as carbon-negative, the former is often used as a marketing term but it is confusing so lets not use it)
For most companies, being carbon negative is actually quite hard to achieve. While for some companies, this initiative is more of a public relations/ corporate social responsibility marketing gig, there are some genuine business initiatives out there.
In 2018, Fast Company's Eillie Anzilotti who covers sustainability, social good, and alternative economies wrote about how The North Face introduced a climate-positive beanie made from the wool of sheep raised on a farm that removed more carbon from the air than it emitted.
Similarly, last year, Greenbar Distillery advertised that it kept a low carbon footprint with organic ingredients and light, recycling packaging it used. They planted a tree for every bottle sold, which removed 316 times the pollution they create.
Planting trees seems to be the easiest and least expensive way to go carbon negative. This way, we continue to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. In addition, some modern-day farming methods also strive to increase the carbon content in soil by either adding bio-char (charcoal produced from biomass) to soils, where the carbon can remain stored for hundreds or thousands of years or by adding fine mineral silicate rocks to soils that absorbs carbon dioxide.
MIT's Energy Initiative is also talking about R & D around two pathways: Water splitting from the sun (splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen) and artificial photosynthesis.
There are also more expensive technologies out there - Bio energy with carbon capture where biomass is burned to generate energy and the capturing of carbon from the air directly. Given the potential, these more advanced technologies (some already in the market, and others that will soon be) have attracted private investment. To have a better understanding of these new technologies, explore resources by IEA, a global non-profit that focuses on sustainable energy.
In a recent 2020 interview published by Forbes, author David Vetter who covers green energy and sustainability stated that Microsoft has an ambitious goal to be carbon negative by 2030 by using a variety of methods to capture carbon, including reforestation, soil carbon sequestration, and new carbon capture technologies. To achieve this goal, Microsoft will be establishing a billion dollar climate innovation fund to accelerate the global development of carbon reduction, capture and removal technologies. See the graph on the Microsoft blog, here.
This is a big and very significant pledge, and we should be excited. This pledge will help boost scientific research on carbon removal technologies as well as the world's climate goals.
We all have to work together toward the issues of climate change. There is no one solution - everyone (countries, companies and individuals) needs to contribute to slow down global warming. Make a difference, do your bit.
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